Rooney Rule: NFL says teams must hire minority or female offensive coach

The league also says its Rooney rule, requiring each team to interview at least two external minority candidates for open head coaching positions, will expand to provide more opportunities for women to land front-line roles. office.

The changes come as the NFL owners hold their annual league meeting in Palm Beach, Florida.

The committee and the changes were instituted “to provide better results in the hiring cycle”.

Last month Brian Flores, the former Miami Dolphins head coach, filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and three of its teams. The NFL and all three teams have denied the allegations.

Offensive assistant coaches will have one-year contracts and will be paid from a league-wide fund. They will work closely with the head coach and offensive staff to gain experience.

Historically, the NFL says “head coaches have primarily come from offensive backgrounds” and the organization hopes the changes will help find talented candidates earlier in their careers and provide room to “develop the diverse offensive pipeline”. .

The NFL has seven black general managers

Currently in the NFL, there were seven black general managers and 12 female coaches at the start of the 2021 season, an all-time high, according to the NFL.

In January, the Houston Texans fired head coach David Culley after one season, leaving the NFL with only one black head coach after years of expressing a desire to increase diversity in top side jobs.

Culley was the second black head coach to be fired the same week after the Miami Dolphins relieved Flores of his duties.

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Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers is one of two black head coaches in a league where nearly 70% of players are black. The other is Lovie Smith of the Houston Texans. Mike McDaniel, who is multiracial, replaced Flores as Dolphins head coach after Flores was fired last month after going 24-25 in his three seasons.

“We have worked for years and made progress in many areas to ensure that our office and club staff and leaders reflect America’s racial and gender makeup, but we still have work to do. , particularly at the head coach and forward-office level,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement.

Belichick's accidental text at center of NFL coach's discrimination lawsuit

Goodell previously admitted that the NFL had failed to secure head coaching opportunities for black and minority candidates and vowed to re-evaluate league policies.

He addressed diversity after Flores filed his discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, which says the Giants interviewed him for their vacancy as head coach under dishonest circumstances because Flores found out three days before his interview. that the Giants had already decided to hire Brian Daboll.

CNN’s Wayne Sterling, David Lopez, David Close, Nicole Chavez, Ben Morse and Jason Hanna contributed to this report.

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